To the Italian President of the Council of Ministers

While Italy’s Head of Government, Mr. Giuseppe Conte, is going crazy trying to stretch this Country’s meager resources and get some urgent “economic impact payments” to needy Italian businesses including the self-employed and VAT-totting professionals, yesterday morning I received an envelope from the US Treasury Department containing a check from “my” President, Donald J. Trump, in the amount of $1,200.00 (US) to help alleviate the negative economic impact of COVID-19.

The envelope with the enclosed check arrived by regular mail from the Philadelphia offices of the Treasury in Pennsylvania direct to my Italian address in Modena, Italy. The envelope contained nothing more than the check, no multi-page letter from some bureaucrat in Philly highlighting the contents in incomprehensible legalese. Just the check in an inconspicuous envelope addressed to me in Italy.

Why inform anyone about something so personal? Why, obviously, because I want my “other” President, Giuseppe Conte, together with all those who, being in the public service, think they are “big shots”, simply because they get to sit around all-day-long on some easy chair dressed up in their Sunday finest, to do something simple like write out a check and mail it.

President Trump’s check represents an “economic impact payment” from the US Government to its citizens regardless of residence because in the United States citizenship is highly valued and carries with it benefits, rights, and obligations. In America, taxation is based first on citizenship, all US citizens being treated as US tax residents regardless of where they actually live and work. Citizenship carries with it the obligation to declare one’s income on a worldwide basis and to file an income tax statement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) each year.

As an American, I wish to publicly thank President Trump in English and Italian like the good FATCA-compliant citizen that I am, for his “economic impact payment”, carried out quickly and without fanfare. I encourage Mr. Conte to emulate President Trump and show Italy’s friends around the world and in the EU that Italians can get things done just as quickly and as efficiently as anybody else.

For the doubting Thomases among you, below is a copy of Mr. Trump’s “economic impact payment” check received yesterday from the US Treasury Department!